THE year after Ramsay’s oration—that is to say in 1738—Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, who for two years had been carrying on a correspondence with Voltaire, suddenly evinced a curiosity to know the secrets of Freemasonry which he had hitherto derided as “ Kinderspiel,” and accordingly went through a hasty initiation during the night of August 14-15, whilst passing through Brunswick.[1]
The ceremony took place not at a masonic lodge, but at a hotel, in the presence of a deputation summoned by the Graf von Lippe-Bückeburg from Grand Lodge of Hamburg for the occasion. It is evident that something of an unusual kind must have occurred to necessitate these speedy and makeshift arrangements. Carlyle, in his account of the episode, endeavours to pass it off as a “ very trifling circumstance ”—a reason the more for regarding it as of the highest importance since we know now from facts that have recently come to light how carefully Carlyle was spoon-fed by Potsdam whilst writing his book on Frederick the Great.[2]
But let us follow Frederick’s masonic career. In June 1740, after his accession to the throne, his interest in Masonry had clearly not waned, for we find him presiding over a lodge at Charlottenburg, where he received into the Order two of his brothers, his brother-in-law, and Duke Frederick William of Holstein-Beck. At his desire the Baron de Bielfeld and his privy councillor Jordan founded a lodge at Berlin, the “ Three Globes,” which by 1746 had no less than fourteen lodges under its jurisdiction.
In this same year of 1740 Voltaire, in response to urgent invitations, paid his first visit to Frederick the Great in Germany. Voltaire is usually said not to have yet become a Mason, and the date of his initiation is supposed to have been 1778, when he was received into the Loge des Neuf Sœurs in Paris. But this by no means precludes the possibility that he had belonged to another masonic Order at an earlier date. At any rate, Voltaire’s visit to Germany was followed by two remarkable events in the masonic world of France. The first of these was the institution of the additional degrees ; the second—perhaps not wholly unconnected with the first—was the arrival in Paris of a masonic delegate from Germany named von Marschall, who brought with him instructions for a new or rather a revived Order of Templarism, in which he attempted to interest Prince Charles Edward and his followers.
Von Marschall was followed about two years later by Baron von Hundt, who had been initiated in 1741 into the three degrees of Craft Masonry in Germany and now came to consecrate a lodge in Paris. According to von Hundt’s own account, he was then received into the Order of the Temple by an unknown Knight of the Red Plume, in the presence of Lord Kilmarnock,[3] and was presented as a distinguished Brother to Prince Charles Edward, whom he imagined to be Grand Master of the Order.[4] But all this was afterwards shown to be a pure fabrication, for Prince Charles Edward denied all knowledge of the affair, and von Hundt himself admitted later that he did not know the name of the lodge or chapter in which he was received, but that he was directed from “ a hidden centre ” and by Unknown Superiors, whose identity he was bound not to reveal.[5] In reality it appears that von Hundt’s account was exactly the opposite of the truth,[6] and that it was von Hundt who, seconding von Marschall’s effort, tried to enrol Prince Charles Edward in the new German Order by assuring him that he could raise powerful support for the Stuart cause under the cover of reorganizing the Templar Order, of which he claimed to possess the true secrets handed down from the Knights of the fourteenth century. By way of further rehabilitating the Order, von Hundt declared that all the accusations brought against it by Philippe le Bel and the Pope were based on false charges manufactured by two recreant Knights named Noffodei and Florian as a revenge for having been deprived of their commands by the Order in consequence of certain crimes they had committed.[7] According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, von Hundt eventually succeeded—after the defeat of Culloden—in persuading Prince Charles Edward to enter his Order. But this is extremely doubtful. At any rate, when in 1751 von Hundt officially founded his new Templar Order under the name of the Stricte Observance, the unfortunate Charles Edward played no part at all in the scheme. As Mr. Gould has truly observed, “ no trace of Jacobite intrigues ever blended with the teaching of the Stricte Observance.”[8]
The Order of the Stricte Observance was in reality a purely German association composed of men drawn entirely from the intellectual and aristocratic classes, and, in imitation of the chivalric Orders of the past, known to each other under knightly titles. Thus Prince Charles of Hesse became Eques a Leone Resurgente, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick Eques a Victoria, the Prussian minister von Bischoffswerder Eques a Grypho, Baron de Wächter Eques a Ceraso, Christian Bode (Councillor of Legation in Saxe-Gotha) Eques a Lilio Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet Minister of Frederick the Great) Eques a Monte Sancto, etc.
But according to the declarations of the Order the official leaders, Knights of the Moon, the Star, the Golden Sun, or of the Sacred Mountain, were simply figure-heads ; the real leaders, known as the “ Unknown Superiors,” remained in the background, unadorned by titles of chivalry but exercising supreme jurisdiction over the Order. The system had been foreshadowed by the “ Invisibles ” of seventeenth-century Rosicrucianism ; but now, instead of an intangible group whose very existence was only known vaguely to the world, there appeared in the light of day a powerful organization led apparently by men of influence and position yet secretly directed by hidden chiefs.[9] Mirabeau has described the advent of these mysterious directors in the following passage :
In about 1756 there appeared, as if they had come out of the ground, men sent, they said, by unknown superiors, and armed with powers to reform the order [of Freemasonry] and re-establish it in its ancient purity. One of these missionaries, named Johnston, came to Weimar and Jena, where he established himself. He was received in the best way in the world by the brothers [Freemasons], who were lured by the hope of great secrets, of important discoveries which were never made known to them.[10]
Now, in the manuscripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx de Canteleu it is said that this man Johnston, or rather Johnson, who proclaimed himself to be “ Grand Prior of the Order,” was a Jew named Leicht or Leucht.[11] Gould says that his real name was either Leucht or Becker, but that he professed to be an Englishman, although unable to speak the English language, hence his assumption of the name Johnson.[12] Mr. Gould has described Johnson as a “ consummate rogue and an unmitigated vagabond . . . of almost repulsive demeanour and of no education, but gifted with boundless impudence and low cunning.” Indeed, von Hundt himself, after enlisting Johnson’s services, found him too dangerous and declared him to be an adventurer. Johnson was thereupon arrested by von Hundt’s friend the councillor von Pritsch, and thrown into the castle of Wartburg, where sudden death ended his career.
It is, however, improbable that Mirabeau could be right in indicating Johnson as one of the “ Unknown Superiors,” who were doubtless men of vaster conceptions than this adventurer appears to have been. Moreover, the manner of his end clearly proves that he occupied a subordinate position in the Stricte Observance.
Here, then, we have a very curious sequence of events which it may be well to recapitulate briefly in order to appreciate their full significance :
1737. Oration of Chevalier Ramsay indicating Templar origin of Freemasonry, but making no mention of upper degrees.
1738. Duc d’Antin becomes Grand Master of French Freemasonry in the place of Lord “ Harnouester.”
1738. Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, initiated into Masonry at Brunswick.
1740. Voltaire pays his first visit to Frederick, now King.
1741. Baron von Marschall arrives in Paris with a plan for reviving the Templar Order. Templar degrees first heard of in France under name of “ Scots Masonry.”
1743. Arrival in France of Baron von Hundt with fresh plans for reviving the Templar Order. Degree of Knight Kadosch celebrating vengeance of Templars said to have been instituted at Lyons.
1750. Voltaire goes to spend three years with Frederick.
1751. Templar Order of the Stricte Observance founded by von Hundt.
1754. Rite of Perfection (early form of Scottish Rite) founded in France.
1761. Frederick acknowledged head of Scottish Rite.
1761. Morin sent to found Rite of Perfection in America.
1762. Grand Masonic Constitutions ratified in Berlin.[13]
It will be seen then that what Mr. Gould describes as “ the flood of Templarism,” which both he and Mr. Tuckett attribute to the so-called Scots Masons,[14] corresponds precisely with the decline of Jacobite and the rise of German influence. Would it not therefore appear probable that, except in the case of the Rose-Croix degree, the authors of the upper degrees were not Scotsmen nor Jacobites, that Scots Masonry was a term used to cover not merely Templarism but more especially German Templarism, and that the real author and inspirer of the movement was Frederick the Great ? No, it is significant to find that in the history of the Ordre du Temple, published at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Frederick the Great is cited as one of the most distinguished members of this Order in the past,[15] and the Abbé Grégoire adds that he was “ consecrated ” at Remersberg (Rheinsberg?) in 1738, that is to say in the same year that he was initiated into Masonry at Brunswick.[16] There is therefore a definite reason for connecting Frederick with Templarism at this date.
I would suggest, then, that the truth about the Templar succession may be found in one of the two following theories :
1. That the documents produced by the Ordre du Temple in the nineteenth century, including the Charter of Larmenius, were genuine ; that the Order had never ceased to exist since the days of the Crusades ; that the Templar heresy was Johannism, but that this was not held by the Templars who escaped to Scotland ; that the Rose-Croix degree in its purely Christian form was introduced by the Scottish Templars to Scotland and four hundred years later brought by Ramsay to France ; that the Master of the Temple at this date was the Regent, Philippe Duc d’Orléans, as stated in the Charter of Larmenius. Finally, that after this, fresh Templar degrees were introduced from Germany by von Hundt, acting on behalf of Frederick the Great.
2. That the documents produced by the Ordre du Temple in the nineteenth century were, as M. Matter declares, early eighteenth-century fabrications ; that although, in view of the tradition preserved in the Royal Order of Scotland, there appears to be good reason to believe the story of the Scottish Templars and the origin of the Rose-Croix degree, the rest of the history of the Templars, including the Charter of Larmenius, was an invention of the “ Concealed Superiors ” of the Stricte Observance in Germany, and that the most important of these “ Concealed Superiors ” were Frederick the Great and Voltaire.
I shall not attempt to decide which of these two theories is correct ; all that I do maintain is that in either case the preponderating role in Templarism at this crisis was played by Frederick the Great, probably with the co-operation of Voltaire, who in his Essai sur les Mœurs championed the cause of the Templars. Let us follow the reasons for arriving at this conclusion.
Ramsay’s oration in 1737 connecting Freemasonry with the Templars may well have come to the ears of Frederick and suggested to him the idea of using Masonry as a cover for his intrigues—hence his hasty initiation at Brunswick. But in order to acquire influence in a secret society it is always necessary to establish a claim to superior knowledge, and Templarism seemed to provide a fruitful source of inspiration. For this purpose new light must be thrown on the Order. Now, there was probably no one better qualified than Voltaire, with his knowledge of the ancient and mediæval world and hatred of the Catholic Church, to undertake the construction of a historical romance subversive of the Catholic faith—hence the urgent summons to the philosopher to visit Frederick. We can imagine Voltaire delving amongst the records of the past in order to reconstruct the Templar heresy. This was clearly Gnostic, and the Mandæans or Christians of St. John may well have appeared to present the required characteristics. If it could be shown that here in Johannism true “ primitive Christianity ” was to be found, what a blow for the “ infâme ” ! A skilful forger could easily be found to fabricate the documents said to have been preserved in the secret archives of the Order. Further we find von Marschall arriving in the following year in France to reorganize the Templars, and von Hundt later claiming to be in possession of the true secrets of the Order handed down from the fourteenth century. That some documents bearing on this question were either discovered or fabricated under the direction of Frederick the Great seems the more probable from the existence of a masonic tradition to this effect. Thus Dr. Oliver quotes a Report of the Grand Inspectors-General in the nineteenth century stating that :
During the Crusades, at which 27,000 Masons were present, some masonic MSS. of great importance were discovered among the descendants of the ancient Jews, and that other valuable documents were found at different periods down to the year of Light 5557 (i.e. 1553), at which time a record came to light in Syrian characters, relating to the most remote antiquity, and from which it would appear that the world is many thousand years older than given by the Mosaic account. Few of these characters were translated till the reign of our illustrious and most enlightened Brother Frederick II, King of Prussia, whose well-known zeal for the Craft was the cause of so much improvement in the Society over which he condescended to preside.[17]
I suggest, then, that the documents here referred to and containing the secrets claimed by von Hundt may have been the ones afterwards published by the Ordre du Temple in the nineteenth century, and that if unauthentic they were the work of Voltaire, aided probably by a Jew capable of forging Syriac manuscripts. That Johnson was the Jew in question seems probable, since Findel definitely asserts that the history of the continuation of the Order of Knights Templar was his work.[18] Frederick, as we know, was in the habit of employing Jews to carry out shady transactions, and he may well have used Johnson to forge documents as he used Ephraim to coin false money for him. It would be further quite in keeping with his policy to get rid of the man as soon as he had served his purpose, lest he should betray his secrets.
At any rate, whatever were the methods employed by Frederick the Great for obtaining control over Masonry, the fruitful results of that “ very trifling circumstance,” his initiation at Brunswick, become more and more apparent as the century advances. Thus when in 1786 the Rite of Perfection was reorganized and rechristened the “ Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite ”—always the same Scottish cover for Prussianism !—it is said to have been Frederick who conducted operations, drew up the new Constitutions of the Order, and rearranged the degrees so as to bring the total number up to thirty-three,[19] as follows :
26. Prince of Mercy.
27. Sovereign Commander of the Temple.
28. Knight of the Sun.
29. Grand Scotch Knight of St. Andrew.
30. Grand Elect Knight of Kadosch.
31. Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander.
32. Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.
33. Sovereign Grand Inspector-General.
In the last four degrees Frederick the Great and Prussia play an important part ; in the thirtieth degree of Knight Kadosch, largely modelled on the Vehmgerichts, the Knights wear Teutonic crosses, the throne is surmounted by the doubleheaded eagle of Prussia, and the President, who is called Thrice Puissant Grand Master, represents Frederick himself ; in the thirty-second degree of Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, Frederick is described as the head of Continental Freemasonry ; in the thirty-third degree of Sovereign Grand Inspector-General the jewel is again the double-headed eagle, and the Sovereign Grand Commander is Frederick, who at the time, this degree was instituted figured with Philippe, Duc d’Orleans, Grand Master of the Grand Orient, as his lieutenant. The most important of these innovations was the thirty-second degree, which was in reality a system rather than a degree for bringing together the Masons of all countries under one head—hence the immense power acquired by Frederick. By 1786 French Masonry was thus entirely Prussianized and Frederick had indeed become the idol of Masonry everywhere. Yet probably no one ever despised Freemasonry more profoundly. As the American Mason Albert Pike shrewdly observed :
There is no doubt that Frederick came to the conclusion that the great pretensions of Masonry in the blue degrees were merely imaginary and deceptive. He ridiculed the Order, and thought its ceremonies mere child’s play ; and some of his sayings to that effect have been preserved. It does not at all follow that he might not at a later day have found it politic to put himself at the head of an Order that had become a power. . . .[20]
It is not without significance to find that in the year following the official foundation of the Stricte Observance, that is to say in 1752, Lord Holdernesse, in a letter to the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Albemarle, headed “ Very secret,” speaks of “ the influence which the King of Prussia has of late obtained over all the French Councils ”; and a few weeks later Lord Albemarle refers to “ the great influence of the Prussian Court over the French Councils by which they are so blinded as not to be able to judge for themselves.”[21]
But it is time to turn to another sphere of activity which Masonry opened out to the ambitions of Frederick.
The making of the Encyclopédie, which even those writers the most sceptical with regard to secret influences behind the revolutionary movement admit to have contributed towards the final cataclysm, is a question on which official history has thrown but little light. According to the authorized version of the story—as related, for example, in Lord Morley’s work on the Encyclopædists—the plan of translating Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopædia, which had appeared in 1728, was suggested to Diderot “ some fifteen years later ” by a French bookseller named Le Breton. Diderot’s “ fertile and energetic intelligence transformed the scheme. . . . It was resolved to make Chambers’s work a mere starting-point for a new enterprise of far wider scope.” We then go on to read of the financial difficulties that now beset the publisher, of the embarrassment of Diderot, who “felt himself unequal to the task of arranging and supervising every department of a new book that was to include the whole circle of the sciences,” of the fortunate enlisting of d’Alembert as a collaborator, and later of men belonging to all kinds of professions, “ all united in a work that was as useful as it was laborious, without any view of interest . . . without any common understanding and agreement,” further, of the cruel persecutions encountered at the hands of the Jesuits, “ who had expected at least to have control of the articles on theology,” and finally of the tyrannical suppression of the great work on account of the anti-Christian tendencies these same articles displayed.[22]
Now for a further light on the matter.
In the famous speech of the Chevalier Ramsay already quoted, which was delivered at Grand Lodge of Paris in 1737, the following passage occurs :
The fourth quality required in our Order is the taste for useful sciences and the liberal arts. Thus, the Order exacts of each of you to contribute, by his protection, liberality, or labour, to a vast work for which no academy can suffice, because all these societies being composed of a very small number of men, their work cannot embrace an object so extended. All the Grand Masters in Germany, England, Italy, and elsewhere exhort all the learned men and all the artisans of the Fraternity to unite to furnish the materials for a Universal Dictionary of all the liberal arts and useful sciences ; excepting only theology and politics. The work has already been commenced in London, and by means of the unions of our brothers it may be carried to a conclusion in a few years.[23]
So after all it was no enterprising bookseller, no brilliantly inspired philosopher, who conceived the idea of the Encyclopédie, but a powerful international organization able to employ the services of more men than all the academies could supply, which devised the scheme at least six years before the date at which it is said to have occurred to Diderot. Thus the whole story as usually told to us would appear to be a complete fabrication—struggling publishers, toiling littérateurs carrying out their superhuman task as “ independent men of letters ” without the patronage of the great—which Lord Morley points out as “ one of the most important facts in the history of the Encyclopædia ”—writers of all kinds bound together by no “ common understanding or agreement,” are all seen in reality to have been closely associated as “ artisans of the Fraternity ” carrying out the orders of their superiors.
The Encyclopédie was therefore essentially a Masonic publication, and Papus, whilst erroneously attributing the famous oration and consequently the plan of the Encyclopédie to the inspiration of the Duc d’Antin, emphasizes the importance of this fact. Thus, he writes :
The Revolution manifests itself by two stages :1st. Intellectual revolution, by the publication of the Encyclopédie, due to French Freemasonry under the high inspiration of the Duc d’Antin.
2nd. Occult revolution in the Lodges, due in great part to the members of the Templar Rite and executed by a group of expelled Freemasons afterwards amnestied.[24]
The masonic authorship of the Encyclopédie and the consequent dissemination of revolutionary doctrines has remained no matter of doubt to the Freemasons of France ; on the contrary, they glory in the fact. At the congress of the Grand Orient in 1904 the Freemason Bonnet declared :
In the eighteenth century the glorious line of Encyclopædists formed in our temples a fervent audience which was then alone in invoking the radiant device as yet unknown to the crowd “ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” The revolutionary seed quickly germinated amidst this élite. Our illustrious Freemasons d’Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, d’Holbach, Voltaire, Condorcet, conipleted the evolution of minds and prepared the new era. And, when the Bastille fell, Freemasonry had the supreme honour of giving to humanity the charter (i.e. the Declaration of the Rights of Man) which it had elaborated with devotion. (Applause.)
This charter, the orator went on to say, was the work of the Freemason Lafayette, and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly, of which more than 300 members were Freemasons.
But in using the lodges to sow the seeds of revolution, the Encyclopædists betrayed not only the cause of monarchy but of Masonry as well. It will be noticed that, in conformity with true masonic principles, Ramsay in his oration expressly stated that the encyclopaedia was to concern itself with the liberal arts and sciences[25] and that theology and politics were to be excluded from the contemplated scheme. How, then, did it come to pass that these were eventually the two subjects to which the Encyclopædists devoted the greatest attention, so that their work became principally an attack on Church and monarchy ? If Papus was right in attributing this revolutionary tendency to the Encyclopédie from the time of the famous oration, then Ramsay could only be set down as the profoundest hypocrite or as the mouthpiece of hypocrites professing intentions the very reverse of their real doings. A far more probable explanation seems to be that during the interval between Ramsay’s speech and the date when the Encyclopédie was begun in earnest, the scheme underwent a change. It will be noticed that the year of 1746, when Diderot and d’Alembert are said to have embarked on their task, coincided with the decadence of French Freemasonry under the Comte de Clermont and the invasion of the lodges by the subversive elements ; thus the project propounded with the best intentions by the Freemasons of 1737 was filched by their revolutionary successors and turned to a diametrically opposite purpose.
But it is not to the dancing-master Lacorne and his middle-class following that we can attribute the efficiency with which not only the Encyclopédie but a host of minor revolutionary publications were circulated all over France. Frederick the Great had seen his opportunity. If I am right in my surmise that Ramsay’s speech had reached the ears of Frederick, the prospect of the Encyclopédie contained therein may well have appeared to him a magnificent method for obtaining a footing in the intellectual circles of France ; hence then, doubtless, an additional reason for his hasty initiation into Masonry, his summons to Voltaire, and his subsequent overtures to Diderot and d’Alembert, who, by the time the first volume of the Encyclopédie appeared in 1751, had both been made members of the Royal Academy of Prussia. In the following year Frederick offered d’Alembert the presidency of the Academy in place of Maupertuis, an offer which was refused ; but in 1755 and again in 1763 d’Alembert visited Frederick in Germany and received his pension regularly from Berlin. It is therefore not surprising that when the Encyclopédie had reached the letter P, it included, in an unsigned article on Prussia, a panegyric on the virtues and the talents of the illustrious monarch who presided over the destinies of that favoured country.
The art of Frederick the Great, as of his successors on the throne of the Hohenzollerns, was to make use of every movement that could further the design of Prussian supremacy. He used the Freemasons as he used the philosophers and as he used the Jews, to carry out his great scheme—the destruction of the French monarchy and of the alliance between France and Austria. Whilst through his representatives at the Court of France he was able to create discord between Versailles and Vienna and bring discredit on Marie Antoinette, through his allies in the masonic lodges and in the secret societies he was able to reach the people of France. The gold and the printing presses of Frederick the Great were added to those of the Orléanistes for the circulation of seditious literature throughout the provinces.[26]
So as the century advanced the association founded by Royalists and Catholics was turned into an engine of destruction by revolutionary intriguers ; the rites and symbols were gradually perverted to an end directly opposed to that for which they had been instituted, and the two degrees of Rose-Croix and Knight Kadosch came to symbolize respectively war on religion and war on the monarchy of France.
It is no orthodox Catholic but an occultist and Rosicrucian who thus describes the role of Masonry in the Revolution :
Masonry has not only been profaned but it has been served as a cover and pretext for the plots of anarchy, by the occult influence of the avengers of Jacques du Molay and the continuers of the schismatic work of the Temple. Instead of avenging the death of Hiram, they have avenged his assassins. The anarchists have taken the plumb-line, the square, and the mallet and have written on them liberty, equality, fraternity. That is to say, liberty for envyings, equality in degradation, fraternity for destruction. Those are the men whom the Church has justly condemned and that she will always condemn.[27]
But it is time to turn to another masonic power which meanwhile had entered the lists, the Martinistes or French Illuminés.
FRENCH ILLUMINISM
Whilst Frederick the Great, the Freemasons, the Encyclopædists, and the Orléanistes were working on the material plane to undermine the Church and monarchy in France, another cult had arisen which by the middle of the century succeeded in insinuating itself into the lodges. This was a recrudescence of the old craze for occultism, which now spread like wildfire all over Europe from Bordeaux to St. Petersburg. During the reign of Anna of Courland (1730-40) the Russian Court was permeated with superstition, and professional magicians and charlatans of every kind were encouraged. The upper classes of Germany in the eighteenth century proved equally susceptible to the attractions of the supernatural, and princes desirous of long life or greater power eagerly pursued the quest of the Philosopher’s Stone, the “ Elixir of Life,” and evoked spirits under the direction of occultists in their service.
In France occultism, reduced to a system, adopted the outer forms of Masonry as a cover to the propagation of its doctrines. It was in 1754 that Martines de Pasqually (or Paschalis), a Rose-Croix Mason,[28] founded his Order of Élus Cohens (Elected Priests), known later as the Martinistes or the French Illuminés. Although brought up in the Christian faith, Pasqually has been frequently described as a Jew. The Baron de Gleichen, himself a Martiniste and a member of the Amis Réunis,[29] throws an interesting light on the matter in this passage : “ Pasqualis was originally Spanish, perhaps of the Jewish race, since his disciples inherited from him a large number of Jewish manuscripts.”[30]
It was “this Cabalistic sect,”[31] the Martinistes, which now became the third great masonic power in France.
The rite of the Martinistes was broadly divided into two classes, in the first of which was represented the fall of man and in the second his final restoration—a further variation on the masonic theme of a loss and a recovery. After the first three Craft degrees came the Cohen degrees of the same—Apprentice Cohen, Fellow Craft Cohen, and Master Cohen—then those of Grand Architect, Grand Elect of Zerubbabel or Knight of the East ; but above these were concealed degrees leading up to the Rose-Croix, which formed the capstone of the edifice.[32] Pasqually first established his rite at Marseilles, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, then in Paris, and before long Martiniste lodges spread all over France with the centre at Lyons under the direction of Willermoz, a prosperous merchant living there. From this moment other occult Orders sprang up in all directions. In 1760 Dom Pernetti founded his sect of “ Illumines d’Avignon ” in that city, declaring himself a high initiate of Freemasonry and teaching the doctrines of Swedenborg. Later a certain Chastanier founded the “Illumines Theosophes,” a modified version of Pernetti’s rite ; and in 1783 the Marquis de Thome started a purified variety of Swedenborgianism under the name of “ Rite of Swedenborg.”
Beneath all these occult sects one common source of inspiration is to be found—the perverted and magical Cabala of the Jews, that conglomeration of wild theosophical imaginings and barbaric superstitions founded on ancient pagan cults and added to throughout seventeen centuries by succeeding generations of Jewish occultists.[33] This influence is particularly to be detected in the various forms of the Rose-Croix degree, which in nearly all these associations forms the highest and most secret degree. The ritual of “ the eminent Order of the Knights of the Black Eagle or Sovereigns of the Rose-Croix,” a secret and unpublished document of the eighteenth century, which differs entirely from the published rituals, explains that no one can attain to knowledge of the higher sciences without the “ Clavicules de Salomon,” of which the real secrets were never committed to print and which is said to contain the whole of Cabalistic science.[34] The catechism of this same degree deals mainly with the transmutation of metals, the Philosopher’s Stone, etc.
In the Rite of Perfection as worked in France and America this Cabalistic influence is shown in those degrees known under the name of the “ Ineffable Degrees,” derived from the Jewish belief in the mystery that surrounds the Ineffable Name of God. According to the custom of the Jews, the sacred name Jehovah or Jah-ve, composed of the four letters yod, he, vau, he, which formed the Tetragrammaton, was never to be pronounced by the profane, who were obliged to substitute for it the word “ Adonai.” The Tetragrammaton might only be uttered once a year on the Day of Atonement by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies amid the sound of trumpets and cymbals, which prevented the people from hearing it. It is said that in consequence of the people thus refraining from its utterance, the true pronunciation of the name was at last lost. The Jews further believed that the Tetragrammaton was possessed of unbounded powers. “He who pronounces it shakes heaven and earth and inspires the very angels with astonishment and terror.”[35] The Ineffable Name thus conferred miraculous gifts ; it was engraved on the rod of Moses and enabled him to perform wonders, just as, according to the Toledot Yeshu, it conferred the same powers on Christ.
This superstition was clearly a part of Rosicrucian tradition, for the symbol of the Tetragrammaton within a triangle, adopted by the masonic lodges, figures in Fludd’s Cabalistic system.[36] In the “ Ineffable degrees ” it was invested with all the mystic awe by which it is surrounded in Jewish theology, and, according to early American working : “ Brothers and Companions of these degrees received the name of God as it was revealed to Enoch and were sworn to pronounce it but once in their lives.”
In the alchemical version of the Rose-Croix degree referred to above the Ineffable Name is actually invested with magical powers as in the Jewish Cabala. Ragon, after describing the Jewish ceremony when the word Jehovah was pronounced by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies, goes on to say that “ Schem-hamm-phorasch,” another term for the Tetragrammaton, forms the sacred word of a Scotch degree, and that this belief in its mystic properties “ will be found at the head of the instructions for the third degree of the Knight of the Black Eagle, called Rose-Croix,” thus :
Q. What is the most powerful name of God on the pentaculum ?
A. Adonai.
Q. What is its power ?
A. To move the Universe.
That one of the Knights who had the good fortune to pronounce it cabalistically would have at his disposal the powers that inhabit the four elements and the celestial spirits, and would possess all the virtues possible to man.[37]
That this form of the Rose-Croix was of purely Jewish origin is thus clearly evident. In the address to the candidate for initiation into the Rose-Croix degree at the Lodge of the “ Contrat Social ” it is stated :
This degree, which includes an Order of Perfect Masons, was brought to light by Brother R., who took it from the Kabbalistic treasure of the Doctor and Rabbi Neamuth, chief of the synagogue of Leyden in Holland, who had preserved its precious secrets and its costume, both of which we shall see in the same order in which he placed them in his mysterious Talmud.[38]
Now, we know that in the eighteenth century a society of Rosicrucian magicians had been instituted in Florence which was believed to date back to the fifteenth century and to have been partly, if not wholly composed of Orientals, as we shall see in the next chapter ; but it seems probable that this sect, whilst secretly inspiring the Rose-Croix masons, was itself either nameless or concealed under a disguise. Thus in 1782 an English Freemason writes : “ I have found some rather curious MSS. in Algiers in Hebrew relating to the society of the Rosicrucians, which exists at present under another name with the same forms. I hope, moreover to be admitted to their knowledge.”[39]
It has frequently been argued that Jews can have played no part in Freemasonry at this period since they themselves were not admitted to the lodges. But this is by no means certain ; in the article from The Gentleman’s Magazine already quoted it is stated that Jews are admitted ; de Luchet further quotes the instance of David Moses Hertz received in a London lodge in 1787 ; and the author of Les Franc-Maçons écrasés, published in 1746, states that he has seen three Jews received into a lodge at Amsterdam. In the “ Melchisedeck Lodges ” of the Continent non-Christians were openly admitted, and here again the Rose-Croix degree occupies the most important place. The highest degrees of this rite were the Initiated Brothers of Asia, the Masters of the Wise, and the Royal Priests, otherwise known as the degree of Melchisedeck or the true Brothers of the Rose-Croix.
This Order, usually described as the Asiatic Brethren, of which the centre was in Vienna and the leader a certain Baron von Eckhoffen, is said to have been a continuation of the “ Brothers of the Golden and Rosy Cross,” a revival of the seventeenth-century Rosicrucians organized in 1710 by a Saxon priest, Samuel Richter, known as Sincerus Renatus. The real origins of the Asiatic Brethren are, however, obscure and little literature on the subject is to be found in this country.[40] Their further title of “ the Knights and Brethren of St. John the Evangelist ” suggests Johannite inspiration and was clearly an imposture, since they included Jews, Turks, Persians, and Armenians. De Luchet, who as a contemporary was in a position to acquire first-hand information, thus describes the organization of the Order, which, it will be seen, was entirely Judaic. “ The superior direction is called the small and constant Sanhedrim of Europe. The names of those employed by which they conceal themselves from their inferiors are Hebrew. The signs of the third principal degree (i.e. the Rose-Croix) are Urim and Thummim. . . . The Order has the true secrets and the explanations, moral and physical, of the hierogyphics of the very venerable Order of Freemasonry.”[41] The initiate had to swear absolute submission and unswerving obedience to the laws of the Order and to follow its laws implicitly to the end of his life, without asking by whom they were given or whence they came.
“ Who,” asks de Luchet, “ gave to the Order these so-called secrets ? That is the great and insidious question for the secret societies. But the Initiate who remains, and must remain eternally in the Order, never finds this out, he dare not even ask it, he must promise never to ask it. In this way those who participate in the secrets of the Order remain the Masters.”
Again, as in the Stricte Observance, the same system of “ Concealed Superiors ”—the same blind obedience to unknown directors !
Under the guidance of these various sects of Illumines a wave of occultism swept over France, and lodges everywhere became centres of instruction on the Cabala, magic, divination, alchemy, and theosophy[42]; masonic rites degenerated into ceremonies for the evocation of spirits—women, who were now admitted to these assemblies, screamed, fainted, fell into convulsions, and lent themselves to experiments of the most horrible kind.[43]
By means of these occult practices the Illumines in time became the third great masonic power in France, and the rival Orders perceived the expediency of joining forces. Accordingly in 1771 an amalgamation of all the masonic groups was effected at the new lodge of the Amis Réunis.
The founder of this lodge was Savalette de Langes, Keeper of the Royal Treasury, Grand Officer of the Grand Orient, and a high initiate of Masonry—“ versed in all mysteries, in all the lodges, and in all the plots.” In order to unite them he made his lodge a mixture of all sophistic, Martiniste, and masonic systems, “ and as a bait to the aristocracy organized balls and concerts at which the adepts, male and female, danced and feasted, or sang of the beauties of their liberty and equality, little knowing that above them was a secret committee which was arranging to extend this equality beyond the lodge to rank and fortune, to castles and to cottages, to marquesses and bourgeois ” alike.[44]
A further development of the Amis Reunis was the Rite of the Philalèthes, compounded by Savalette de Langes in 1773 out of Swedenborgian, Martiniste, and Rosicrucian mysteries, into which the higher initiates of the Amis Reunis—Court de Gebelin, the Prince de Hesse, Condorcet, the Vicomte de Tavannes, Willermoz, and others—were initiated. A modified form of this rite was instituted at Narbonne in 1780 under the name of “ Free and Accepted Masons du Rit Primitif,” the English nomenclature being adopted (according to Clavel) in order to make it appear that the rite emanated from England. In reality its founder, the Marquis de Chefdebien d’Armisson, a member of the Grand Orient and of the Amis Reunis, drew his inspiration from certain German Freemasons with whom he maintained throughout close relations and who were presumably members of the Stricte Observance, since Chefdebien was a member of this Order, in which he bore the title of “ Eques a Capite Galeato.” The correspondence that passed between Chefdebien and Salvalette de Langes, recently discovered and published in France, is one of the most illuminating records of the masonic ramifications in existence before the Revolution ever brought to light.[45] To judge by the tone of these letters, the leaders of the Rit Primitif would appear to have been law-abiding and loyal gentlemen devoted to the Catholic religion, yet in their passion for new forms of Masonry and thirst for occult lore ready to associate themselves with every kind of adventurer and charlatan who might be able to initiate them into further mysteries. In the curious notes drawn up by Savalette for the guidance of the Marquis de Chefdebien we catch a glimpse of the power behind the philosophers of the salons and the aristocratic adepts of the lodges—the professional magicians and men of mystery ; and behind these again the concealed directors of the secret societies, the real initiates.
THE MAGICIANS
The part played by magicians during the period preceding the French Revolution is of course a matter of common knowledge and has never been disputed by official history. But like the schools of philosophers this sudden crop of magicians is always represented as a sporadic growth called into being by the idle and curious society of the day. The important point to realize is that just as the philosophers were all Freemasons, the principal magicians were not only Freemasons but members of occult secret societies. It is therefore not as isolated charlatans but as agents of some hidden power that we must regard the men whom we will now pass in a rapid survey.
One of the first to appear in the field was Schroepfer, a coffee-house keeper of Leipzig, who declared that no one could be a true Freemason without practising magic. Accordingly he proclaimed himself the “ reformer of Freemasonry,” and set up a lodge in his own house with a rite based on the Rose-Croix degree for the purpose of evoking spirits. The meetings took place at dead of night, when by means of carefully arranged lights, magic mirrors, and possibly of electricity, Schroepfer contrived to produce apparitions which his disciples—under the influence of strong punch—took to be visitors from the other world.[46] In the end Schroepfer, driven crazy by his own incantations, blew out his brains in a garden near Leipzig.
According to Lecouteulx de Canteleu, it was Schroepfer who indoctrinated the famous “ Comte de Saint-Germain ”—“ The Master ” of our modern co-masonic lodges. The identity of this mysterious personage has never been established[47]; by some contemporaries he was said to be a natural son of the King of Portugal, by others the son of a Jew and a Polish Princess. The Duc de Choiseul on being asked whether he knew the origin of Saint-Germain replied : “ No doubt we know it, he is the son of a Portuguese Jew who exploits the credulity of the town and Court.”[48] In 1780 a rumour went round that his father was a Jew of Bordeaux, but according to the Souvenirs of the Marquise de Créquy the Baron de Breteuil discovered from the archives of his Ministry that the pretended Comte de Saint-Germain was the son of a Jewish doctor of Strasburg, that his real name was Daniel Wolf, and that he was born in 1704.[49] The general opinion thus appears to have been in favour of his Jewish ancestry.
Saint-Germah seems first to have been heard of in Germany about 1740, where his marvellous powers attracted the attention of the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, who, always the ready dupe of charlatans, brought him back with him to the Court of France, where he speedily gained the favour of Madame de Pompadour. The Marquise before long presented him to the King, who granted him an apartment at Chambord and, enchanted by his brilliant wit, frequently spent long evenings in conversation with him in the rooms of Madame de Pompadour. Meanwhile his invention of flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of England raised him still higher in the estimation of the Maréchal de Belle-Isle. In 1761 we hear of him as living in great splendour in Holland and giving out that he had reached the age of seventy-four, though appearing to be only fifty ; if this were so, he must have been ninety-seven at the time of his death in 1784 at Schleswig. But this feat of longevity is far from satisfying his modern admirers, who declare that Saint-Germain did not die in 1784, but is still alive to-day in some corner of Eastern Europe. This is in accordance with the theory, said to have been circulated by Saint-Germain himself, that by the eighteenth century he had passed through several incarnations and that the last one had continued for 1,500 years. Barruel, however, explains that Saint-Germain in thus referring to his age spoke in masonic language, in which a man who has taken the first degree is said to be three years old, after the second five, or the third seven, so that by means of the huge increase the higher degrees conferred it might be quite possible for an exalted adept to attain the age of 1,500.
Saint-Germain has been represented by modern writers—not only those who compose his following—as a person of extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day. Contemporaries, however, take him less seriously and represent him rather as an expert charlatan whom the wits of the salons made the butt of pleasantries. His principal importance to the subject of this book consists, however, in his influence on the secret societies. According to the Mémoires authentiques pour servir à l’histoire du Comte de Cagliostro, Saint-Germain was the “ Grand Master of Freemasonry,”[50] and it was he who initiated Cagliostro into the mysteries of Egyptian masonry.
Joseph Balsamo, born in 1743, who assumed the name of Comte de Cagliostro, as a magician far eclipsed his master. Like Saint-Germain, he was generally reputed to be a Jew—the son of Pietro Balsamo, a Sicilian tradesman of Jewish origin[51]—and he made no secret of his ardent admiration for the Jewish race. After the death of his parents he escaped from the monastery in which he had been placed at Palermo and joined himself to a man known as Altotas, said to have been an Armenian, with whom he travelled to Greece and Egypt.[52] Cagliostro’s travels later took him to Poland and Germany, where he was initiated into Freemasonry,[53] and finally to France ; but it was in England that he himself declared that he elaborated his famous “ Egyptian Rite,” which he founded officially in 1782. According to his own account, this rite was derived from a manuscript by a certain George Cofton—whose identity has never been discovered—which he bought by chance in London.[54] Yarker, however, expresses the opinion that “ the rite of Cagliostro was clearly that of Pasqually,” and that if he acquired it from a manuscript in London it would indicate that Pasquilly had disciples in that city. A far more probable explanation is that Cagliostro derived his Egyptian masonry from the same source as that on which Pasqually had drawn for his Order of Martinistes, namely the Cabala, and that it was not from a single manuscript but from an eminent Jewish Cabalist in London that he took his instructions. Who this may have been we shall soon see. At any rate, in a contemporary account of Cagliostro we find him described as “ a doctor initiated into Cabalistic art” and a Rose-Croix ; but after founding his own rite he acquired the name of Grand Copht, that is to say, Supreme Head of Egyptian Masonry, a new branch that he wished to graft on to old European Freemasonry.[55] We shall return to his further masonic adventures later.
In a superior category to Saint-German and Cagliostro was the famous Swabian doctor Mesmer, who has given his name to an important branch of natural science. In about 1780 Mesmer announced his great discovery of “ animal magnetism, the principle of life in all organized beings, the soul of all that breathes.” But if to-day Mesmerism has come to be regarded as almost synonymous with hypnotism and in no way a branch of occultism, Mesmer himself—stirring the fluid in his magic bucket, around which his disciples wept, slept, fell into trances or convulsions, raved or prophesied[56]—earned not unnaturally the reputation of a charlatan. The Freemasons, eager to discover the secret of the magic bucket, hastened to enrol him in their Order, and Mesmer was received into the Primitive Rite of Free and Accepted Masons in 1785.[57]
Space forbids a description of the minor magicians who flourished at this period—of Schroeder, founder in 1776 of a chapter of “ True and Ancient Rose-Croix Masons,” practising certain magical, theosophical, and alchemical degrees ; of Gassner, worker of miracles in the neighbourhood of Ratisbonne ; of “ the Jew Leon,” one of a band of charlatans who made large sums of money with magic mirrors in which the imaginative were able to see their absent friends, and who was finally banished from France by the police,—all these and many others exploited the credulity and curiosity of the upper classes both in France and Germany between the years of 1740 and 1790. De Luchet, writing before the French Revolution, describes the part played in their mysteries by the soul of a Cabalistic Jew named Gablidone who had lived before Christ, and who predicted that “ in the year 1800 there will be, on our globe, a very remarkable revolution, and there will be no other religion but that of the patriarchs.”[58]
How are we to account for this extraordinary wave of Cabalism in Western Europe ? By whom was it inspired ? If, as Jewish writers assure us, neither Martines Pasqually, Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, nor any of the visible occultists or magicians were Jews, the problem only becomes the more insoluble. We cannot believe that Sanhedrims, Hebrew hieroglyphics, the contemplation of the Tetragrammaton, and other Cabalistic rites originated in the brains of French and German aristocrats, philosophers, and Freemasons. Let us turn, then, to events taking place at this moment in the world of Jewry and see whether these may provide some clue.
1. Gould : History of Freemasonry, III. 241.
2. See the very important article on this question that appeared in The National Review for February 1923, showing that Carlyle was assisted gratuitously throughout his work by a German Jew named Joseph Neuberg and w0 supplied with information and finally decorated by the Prussian Government.
3. Executed in 1746 as a partisan of the Stuarts.
4. Gould, op. cit., III. pp. 101, 110; A.Q.C., XXXII. Part I. p. 31.
5. A.E. Waite : The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, I. 296, 370, 415.
6. Clavel (Histoire pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie, p. 185) says it was afterwards discovered that “ the Pretender, far from having made de Hundt a Templar, on the contrary was made Templar by him.” But other authorities deny that Prince Charles Edward was initiated even into Freemasonry.
7. Canteleu: Les Sectes et Sociétés Secrètes, p. 242; Clavel, op. cit., p. 184.
8. Gould, op. cit., III. 100.
9. Ibid., III. 99, 103; Waite : Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, I. 289 : “ The Rite of the Stricte Observance was the first masonic system which claimed to derive its authority from Unknown Superiors, irresponsible themselves but claiming absolute jurisdiction and obedience without question.”
10. Histoire de la Monarchie Prussienne, V. 61 (1788).
11. Les Sectes et Sociétés Secrètes, p. 246.
12. Gould, op. cit., III. 102 . Waite (Encyclopædia of Freemasonry, II. 23.) says Johnson was “ in reality named Leucht, an Englishman by his claims—who did not know English and is believed to have been a Jew.”
13. Mackey, op. cit., p. 331.
14. Gould : History of Freemasonry, III. 93 . A.Q.C ., XXXII. Part. I. p. 24.
15. Lévitikon, p. 8. (1831); Fabré Palaprat : Rechercher historiques sur les Templiers, p. 28 (1835).
16. M. Grégoire, Histoire des Sectes Religieuses, II. 401 . Findel says that very soon after Frederick’s return home from Brunswick “ a lodge was secretly organized in the castle of Rheinsberg ” (History of Freemasonry, Eng. trans., p. 252). This lodge would appear then to have been a Templar, not a Masonic Lodge.
17. Oliver : Historical Landmarks in Freemasonry, II. 110.
18. Findel : History of Freemasonry p. 290.
19. On this point see inter alia Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry, pp. 91, 328. In England and in the Grand Orient of France most of the upper degrees have fallen into disuse, and this rite, known in England as the Ancient and Accepted Rite and in France as the Scottish Rite, consists of five degrees only in addition to the three Craft degrees (known as Blue Masonry), which form the basis of all masonic rites . These five degrees are the eighteenth Rose-Croix, the thirtieth Knight Kadosch, and the thirty-first to the thirty-third . The English Freemason, on being admitted to the upper degrees, therefore advances at one bound from the third degree of Master Mason to the eighteenth degree of Rose-Croix, which thus forms the first of the upper degrees . The intermediate degrees are, however, still worked in America.
20. Scottish Rite of Freemasonry : the Constitutions and Regulations of 1762, by Albert Pike, Sovereign Commander of the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, p. 138 (A.M. 5632).
21. R.O. State Papers, Foreign, France, Vol. 243, Jan. 2 and Feb. 19, 1752.
22. John Morley : Diderot and the Encyclopædists, Vol. I. pp. 123-147 (1886).
23. Gould, op. cit., III. 87 . Mr. Gould naïvely adds in a footnote to this passage : “ The proposed Dictionary is a curious crux—is it possible that the Royal Society may have formed some such idea ? ” The beginning already made in London was of course the Cyclopædia of Chambers, published in 1728, and Chambers, who in the following year was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, if not himself a Mason numbered many prominent Masons amongst his friends, including the globe-maker Senex to whom he had been apprenticed and who published Anderson’s Constitutions in 1723. (See A.Q.C., XXXII. Part I. p. 18.)
24. Papus, Martines de Pasqually, p. 146 (1895).
25. Evidently a reference to the seven liberal arts and sciences enumerated in the Fellow Craft’s degree—Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy.
26. In 1767 Voltaire writes to Frederick asking him to have certain books printed in Berlin and circulated in Europe “ at a low price which will facilitate the sales .” To this Frederick replies : “ You can make use of my printers according to your desires,” etc. (letter of May 5, 1767) . I have referred elsewhere to the libels against Marie Antoinette circulated by Frederick’s agents in France . See my French Revolution, pp. 27, 183.
27. Eliphas Lévi, Histoire de la Magie, p. 407 . The rôle of Freemasonry in preparing the Revolution habitually denied by the conspiracy of history is nevertheless clearly recognized in masonic circles—applauded by those of France, deplored by those of England and America . An American manual in my possession contains the following passage : “ The Masons . . . (it is now well settled by history) originated the Revolution with the infamous Duke of Orleans at their head.”—A Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry, p. 31 note.
28. Papus : Martines de Pasqually, p. 150.
29. Benjamin Fabre : Eques a Capite Galeato, p. 88.
30. Souvenirs du Baron de Gleichen, p. 151.
31. Henri Martin, Histoire de France, XVI. 529.
32. Heckethorn, Secret Societies, I. 218; Waite, Secret Tradition, II. 155, 156.
33. “ The ceremonial magic of Pasqually followed that type which I connect with the debased Kabbalism of Jewry.”—A.E. Waite, The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, II. 175.
34. An eighteenth-century manuscript of Les vrais clavicules du roi Salomon, translated from the Hebrew, was sold in Paris in 1921.
35. Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry, p. 156.
36. A.E. Waite, The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabbalah, p. 369. Ragon elsewhere gives an account of the philosophical degree of the Rose-Croix, in which the sacred formula I.N.R.I., which plays an important part in the Christian form of this degree, is interpreted to mean Igne Natura Renovatur Integra—Nature is renewed by fire.—Nouveau Grade de Rose Croix, p. 69. Mackey gives this as an alternative interpretation of the Rosicrucians.—Lexicon of Freemasonry, p. 150.
37. Ragon, Maçonnerie Occulte, p. 91.
38. Gustave Bord, La Franc-Maçonnerie en France, dés Origines à 1815, p. 212 (1908).
39. Letter from General Rainsford of October 1782, quoted in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society, Vol. VIII. p. 125.
40. De Luchet (Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, p. 212) refers to the following works in connexion with the Order :
1 . Nouvelles authentiques des Chevaliers et Frères Initiés d’Asie .
2 . Reçoit-on, peut-on recevoir les Juifs parmi les Franc-Maçons ?
3 . Nouvelles authentiques de l’Asie, by Frederick de Bascamp, nommé Lazapoloki (1787)
Wolfstieg, in his Bibliographie der Freimaurischer Literatur, Vol. II. p. 283, gives Friedrich Münter as the author of the first of the above, and also mentions amongst others a work by Gustave Brabée, Die Asiatischen Brüder in Berlin und Wien. But none of these are to be found in the British Museum, nor is the book of Rolling (published in 1787), which gives away the secrets of the sect.
41. Books in Wolfstieg’s list refer to the Order as “ the only true and genuine Freemasonry ” (die einzige wahre und echte Freimaurerei).
42. Clavel, Histoire pittoresque, p. 167.
43. The Baron de Gleichen, in describing the “ Convulsionists,” says that young women allowed themselves to be crucified, sometimes head downwards, at these meetings of the fanatics . He himself saw one nailed to the floor and her tongue cut with a razor. (Souvenirs du Baron de Gleichen, p. 185.)
44. Barruel, Mémoires sur le Jacobinisme, IV. 263.
45. Franciscus, Eques a Capite Galeato, published by Benjamin Fabre with preface by Copin Albancelli . A paper on this book appears in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. XXX. Part II . The author, Mr. J.E.S. Tuckett, describes as a book of extraordinary interest to Freemasons . Without sharing Mr. Tuckett’s admiration for the members of the Rit Primitif, I agree with him that Mr. Fabre attributes to them too much guile and fails to substantiate his charge of revolutionary designs . They appear to have been the perfectly honourable dupes of subtler brains . Incidentally Mr. Tuckett erroneously gives the real name of “ Eques a Capite Galeato ” as Chefdebien d’Armand ; it should be d’Armisson .
46. De Luchet, Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, p. 208. Gould, op. cit., III. 116.
47. It is amusing to note that Mr. Waite confuses him with the rightful bearer of the name, Claude Louis, Comte de Saint-Germain, Minister of War under Louis XVI, for in The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, Vol. II., a picture is appended to a description of the adventurer.
48. Biographie Michaud, article on Saint-Germain.
49. Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy, III. 65. François Bournand (Histoire de Franc-Maçonnerie, p. 106) confirms this story : “ The man who called himself the Comte de Saint-Germain was in reality only the son of an Alsatian Jew named Wolf.”
50. Nouvelle Biographie Générale, article on Saint-Germain.
51. Frederick Bülau, Geheime Geschichten und rätselhafte Menschen, I. 311. (1850). Eckert, La Franc-Maçonnerie dans sa véritable signification, II. 80, quoting Lening’s Encyclopédie des Franc-Maçons.
52. Lecouteulx de Canteleu, op. cit., pp. 171, 172.
53. Clavel, Histoire pittoresque, p. 175.
54. Ibid., p. 175.
55. Figuier, Histoire du Merveilleux, IV. 9-11 (1860).
56. Mounier, De l’influence attribuée, p. 140.
57. Benjamin Fabre, Franciscus Eques a Capite Galeato, p. 24.
58. De Luchet, Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, p. 234.